Wrong: Al Gore Predicted Arctic Summer Ice Could Disappear In 2013

A 2007 prediction that summer in the North Pole could be “ice-free by 2013” that was cited by former Vice President Al Gore in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech has proven to be off… by 920,000 square miles.

In his Dec. 10, 2007 “Earth has a fever” speech, Gore referred to a prediction by U.S. climate scientist Wieslaw Maslowski that the Arctic’s summer ice could “completely disappear” by 2013 due to global warming caused by carbon emissions.

Gore said that on Sept. 21, 2007, “scientists reported with unprecedented alarm that the North Polar icecap is, in their words, ‘falling off a cliff.’ One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week warns that it could happen in as little as seven years, seven years from now.”

Maslowski told members of the American Geophysical Union in 2007 that the Arctic’s summer ice could completely disappear within the decade. “If anything,” he said, “our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer… is already too conservative.”

The former vice president also warned that rising temperatures were “a planetary emergency and a threat to the survival of our civilization.”

However, instead of completely melting away, the polar icecap is at now at its highest level for this time of year since 2006.

Satellite photos of the Arctic taken by NASA in August 2012 and August 2013 show a 60 percent increase in the polar ice sheet, more than half the size of Europe, despite “realistic” predictions by climate scientists six years ago that the North Pole would be completely melted by now.

In fact, the Arctic Ocean was largely ice free last summer — one year early. This year, the ice was back — partly. One year does not make a trend. Those who use a single data point from a single region on earth as an argument against the existence of global warming are being intellectually dishonest and are promoting junk science. Had you looked instead at the summer temperatures in Arizona this year you would see a different story.